A TEAM EFFORT.

Byline: Steve Mims The Register-Guard

Thirty years ago, North Eugene had the ultimate do-it-all star who grabbed most of the headlines and is still considered by many to be the best prep basketball player in state history.

Yet if the last big school to win back-to-back boys basketball titles in Oregon is known mostly as Danny Ainge's team, those who watched, coached, and played for the Highlanders during their magical run in 1976-77 recall the ultimate team whose other players were so much more than Ainge's supporting cast.

The Highlanders won 38 consecutive games over two years culminating with a 56-45 victory over Grant in the state championship game on March 12, 1977, that made them the sixth and last team to win two titles in a row at the state's largest classification.

The state was buzzing about basketball at the time, and North Eugene played a part in that. Blazermania was a hit in Portland as the Trail Blazers were three months away from winning the NBA championship and Eugene was in love with Dick Harter's Kamikaze Kids at the University of Oregon.

North Eugene also captured the community, playing before standing-room only crowds at almost every stop.

"Those were the good 'ol days, and I was the JV coach and we packed that gym," said Terry Viohl, a North Eugene assistant coach from 1972-77 who became head coach of the Highlanders the following season. "My JV team played in front of packed crowds every game, and you couldn't get a seat. This community and the whole town really supported them all the way."

Games were sold out and the fire marshal sometimes cut off ticket sales at halftime of the junior varsity game.

"You couldn't get a parking place," recalled former Register-Guard sportswriter Dave Kayfes. "I remember walking blocks because it was always full. There were people getting there early thinking they would not get a ticket. It was the hot ticket in town. The Ducks were big and the Kamikazes and Ronnie Lee were big, but Ainge was that kind of a figure to the high schools here. Ainge was that important at the time, and basketball was huge."

Ainge leads a talented team

Ainge earned his second straight Midwestern League most valuable player honor as a senior in 1977 while leading the Highlanders with 23.8 points, 8.1 rebounds and more than five steals per game. Ainge, who played about 22 minutes per game because North won by an average of 31 points per game, shot 61.1 percent from the field and 80.3 percent on free throws.

The statistics show his talent, but they can't fully describe all the can-you-believe-that moments that Ainge provided for the flocks of fans that showed up to watch the Highlanders.

One night, nearly 7,000 fans showed up at McArthur Court to watch North Eugene play Thurston, and Ainge wowed them all when he swished an 85-foot shot just before the halftime buzzer.

"I was on crutches getting ready to go to the locker room and I was on the end where Danny threw that," teammate Mike Babb recalled recently. "The ball started outside the backboard and had a spin coming off his fingers that made it curve into the hoop. You just remember things like that."

Allan Quinby, who served as the team manager, recalled a game against North Bend when Ainge stole the inbound pass on four straight possessions.

Ainge broke the school scoring record in three straight games when he scored 38, 39 and 40 points in consecutive games against Sheldon, South Eugene and Cottage Grove.

"He was a great ballplayer, but he made us so much better as a team," said Barney Holland, who led North Eugene to three state titles while coaching the Highlanders from 1964-77. "He could score 38 or 40 every night, but I don't think we would have been as good of a team."

And Ainge might not have developed into a player who averaged 11.5 points per game during a 14-year NBA career that included two championships with the Boston Celtics.

"I've heard other people say that of all the great things Barney did, one of the best was the job he did with Ainge in keeping him hungry," said John Roche, who was an assistant coach at North Eugene from 1972-75 before leaving to become the head coach at Central Catholic and later at Churchill. "I thought that was a real key to North's success. It also made Danny because he was a 35-year-old guy still playing in the NBA."

Ainge, who now works as the director of basketball operations for the Celtics, was out of town scouting last week and did not return e-mails seeking comment for this story.

Ainge was always the primary focus of opposing defenses at North and he had no problem dishing to his teammates.

Sharpshooting forward Mike O'Neil averaged 13.2 points per game, point guard Rodger Bates averaged 9.5 points, and both those Highlanders joined Ainge on the all-league team. Center Greg Niko, forward Greg Jacobson and reserve Steve Moulton all averaged between six and seven points per game.

"When you had a guy like Ainge you think one guy was so dominant, but you couldn't do any special defenses against them," then-Churchill coach Ken Harris said. "You couldn't double on Ainge because that team had too many weapons and was too well-balanced."

Holland ran the scramble offense, which relied heavily on backdoor cuts and players moving without the ball, and Ainge and each of his teammates had the ability to get open.

"That was the beauty of the offense we ran," Babb said. "If teams isolated on Danny, somebody else would score. The way it was set up was that everyone worked and there was no set play for anyone. Whoever worked the hardest and got open got the basketball and got to score."

A memorable run

North Eugene started the 1975-76 season with 15 straight victories before losing at Churchill, 44-43.

"I remember that game as a lot of us stood around and let Danny score 36 points and that was all but about seven for the team," said Bates, who is now a physical education instructor at Lane Community College and girls basketball coach at Pleasant Hill High School.

Bates said that experience served as a lesson for the Highlanders, who did not lose again in 1976 or 1977 while putting together what now stands as the eighth-longest win streak in state history.

North Eugene went on to beat Lake Oswego, 52-39, to win the state title in 1976.

One year later, North Eugene went 22-0 in the regular season and won only two games by fewer than 13 points.

Holland's run-and-jump defense, which featured a variety of full- and half-court presses, was considered the key to North's success.

"That was probably as fine a defensive team as I have ever seen," Harris said. "A lot of the hoopla went to Danny, and deservedly so, but I think it was the defense that made them such a scourge at the time. They were tough to score on."

It was tough for teams to even get past halfcourt as North would often have three defenders in the backcourt forcing opponents to one side, and then the Highlanders were well-versed on how to read passes and anticipate steals. Ainge, with his 119 steals in the regular season, got a lot of his points by turning turnovers into layups.

The Highlanders were in top shape because of the conditioning drills that Holland put his team through, including the Oregon drill when players had to run sideline-to-sideline and touch the lines at least 16 times in one minute.

"Our conditioning drills were horrendous," said Jim Steiner, a senior forward on the team who works as a union representative in Eugene. "Nobody had weak legs at the end of the season."

North entered the state tournament in 1977 ranked No. 1 in the state, but Grant, Parkrose and Lake Oswego were all undefeated as well. North opened the tournament with comfortable victories over Roseburg (62-43) and Corvallis (71-32), and Ainge led the way by scoring a total of 43 points in the two wins.

"I remember there was way too much Ainge for us to handle," former Corvallis coach Mike Doherty said recently.

That was true, but the Highlanders showed they were a complete team in their final two games at the tournament.

In the semifinals against Parkrose, Ainge picked up his third foul with three minutes left in the first half and went to the bench, but North still built a 31-21 lead at halftime.

Ainge finished with 14 points, but Niko also had 14 and Bates added 12 as North defeated Parkrose 51-40.

In the championship victory over Grant, Ainge was the fourth-leading scorer on the team with eight points on 3-for-9 shooting. O'Neil led the way with 15, Bates had 14 and Niko added 10.

North remains the last team to win back-to-back titles at the state's largest classification and now top-ranked Lake Oswego is the latest team to take its shot at a repeat.

"It's tough to do," said Holland, who resigned after the 1977 season and later became an assistant coach at Oregon before coaching Aloha High School from 1981-89.

"Everyone shoots for you, and you have to be ready to play. That group of kids was very ready to accept that, and every game they came prepared to play and ready to play with relaxed abandon."

Lifelong friendships last

Most of the players who helped North Eugene to back-to-back state titles grew up playing sports together, and the group remains close today as many of the players and coaches have organized reunions during the past 30 years.

Niko, who was killed in a car accident a few years after graduation, is the only member of the team who has died.

Many of the players and coaches had a series of reunions in Arizona when Ainge was coaching the Phoenix Suns, and last year many of them gathered during the state tournament at McArthur Court when North's 1976 title team was honored.

The biggest reunion came in 1997, when almost the entire team got together to mark the 20-year anniversary of the championship during a weekend that included a barbeque and golf outings. There was also a basketball game between former players one morning at North Eugene.

"We didn't lose anything from '77," Quinby recalled. "Barney tossed the ball up to start it off and Danny got a hold of it, took two steps inside halfcourt, and shot nothing but net. The testosterone did not level off after that."

One thing that stuck out during those reunions is how success on the basketball court led to success in life for the players. Holland estimated that 15 kids off the 1976-77 teams went on to play sports in college.

"A lot of college graduates came out of that bunch," the coach said.

Quinby, who lives in Eugene and is a captain for United Airlines, said the reunions reveal the similar paths many of the players took in life.

"It's interesting, all of us have coached basketball at some level or another," he said. "All of us got a college scholarship or educational help somewhere, and not all for basketball. We've got business owners, lawyers, doctors, coaches, school administrators. It is interesting to see how everyone made it."

Babb, who recently moved to Kennedale, Texas, for his job with Costco, said much of the credit for the players' success after high school came from lessons learned at North.

"Things were instilled in us, not just with Barney but with (baseball coach) Garry Selby and (teacher and coach) Bob Anderson," said Babb, who played football at Oregon. "All those guys were great mentors and great disciplinarians and a lot of that carries over to what you do in everyday life. Things you learned there along with your parents are instilled for a lifetime. You can do what you want with it, but a lot of those things make you succeed in life."